Time didn'trush between us-
After that day at the café, I didn't expect the thread between them to tighten overnight.
It didn't.
Instead, it hummed faintly in the background, like a note held in the air after the music had stopped.
We began orbiting each other again—not like they used to, but not like strangers either. Not the intense, unspokencloseness of high school, nor the aching distance of the years after.
It was something gentler,
Something slow-
Something like two people relearning the weatherpatterns of each other's presence.
Kaze never offered full explanations.
I didn't demand them,
-not yet.
Instead, they let their words circle smaller, safer things.
Books-
Clouds.,
Songs with lyrics too sad for their melodies.
Warm drinks and colder sunsets.
Sometimes, we didn't talk at all.
---
(Library Afternoon)
It was a Tuesday when I spotted her again in the library.
Kaze was sitting in a corner seat, back to the wall, the afternoon sunlandingacrossherlap.
I went on and selected a book but my eyes weren't on the page—they were somewhereelse
- just beyond the glass window
On her, as her gaze drifted where the sky was pale and nearly blank.
I took the chair opposite without asking. She didn't speak, just set her own notebook on the table and began flipping through it.
The faintscent of her tea drifted across the space between them.
Half an hour passed like that—quiet, unbroken, except for the occasionalscratch of Kaze's pen and the soft sound of turning of page I wasn't reading.
It was Kaze who broke the silence first, though not with the kind of thing people expect after years apart.
"Do you ever think about the people who plant trees they'll never sit under?"
I blinked, halfway through tracing a sentence.
"Yes- ?"
Kaze's eyes met mine, steady.
"I think… some people love like that."
No further explanation.
Just a faint smile before she looked back at her notebook of Skeches.
My thoughts restedstill for a long time after.
---
(Flashback)
One moment I was watching Kaze sip her tea,
the next I was back in their oldclassroom—Kaze's head bent over a homeworksheet, doodling a bird mid-flight, its wings breaking the border of the paper. She used to hum as she erased , soft and barely-there, like music made for one set of ears only.
Her laughter back then always came a secondlate,
-as though she was measuring whether the world deservedit.
Now, Kaze still hummed, but the sound was less guarded. Her laughter came quicker, sometimes catching me by surprise.
---
A month later-
spring rain arrivedearly.
I was leaving the library when I spotted her-
Kaze standing under the archway, watchingthedrizzle with that half-tilt of her head she used to have when looking at clouds.
"Forgot my umbrella," Kaze said as I approached, her tone not exactly apologetic—just factual.
I hesitated, then held mine out.
"We can share."
We walked close, the narrowumbrella forcing their shoulders to brush with every step. The street smelled of wet earth and the faint tang of rain on concrete.
"You still like storms?" I asked.
Kaze's lips curved faintly.
"I like what they leave behind."
I glanced at her, catching the way a drop of water clung to her lashes before falling.
"And what's that?"
"Different air."
The rest of the walk passed in quiet, except for the soft patter of rain on the umbrella and the rhythmic sound of their footsteps on damp pavement.
I thought she could get used to this kind of silence—the kind that filled rather than emptied.
---
It happened gradually—I found herself attuned to Kaze's presence without even trying.
I noticed when her shoulders tensed mid-conversation, when her hands lingered too long around a warm cup, when her gaze drifted far away as though chasing something only she could see.
I didn't ask if Kaze was okay...
I just… stayed.
She showed up on days the clouds felt heavier. She walked her halfway to class, even if it meant taking the long route.
-- let silence become its own kind of conversation.
Maybe, I thought, that was what Kaze needed all along.
Someone who didn't demand keys to every locked door. Someone willing to sit outside in the rain until she was ready to open them herself.
---
It was Kaze's idea to go.
They sat at the back, half in shadow, watching strangers spill pieces of themselves under the dim café lights.
One man read a poem about losing his father.
A girl in a red scarf sang a song so quiet the microphone barely caught it.
Then Kaze leaned over, her voicelow.
"I've been writing again."
I turned, surprised.
"For yourself or for—"
"I'm not sure yet."
Kaze's eyes flicked to the stage, watching the singer finish.
"But I think some words are meant to be shared, even if you're not ready to hear the answer back."
I didn't ask to see her work.
She just nodded, letting the moment settle between them.
Winter passed quietly.
By the time the cherry trees began to bloom again, their rhythmfeltnatural—like something that had been there all along, waiting to be noticed again.
There were still shadows.
I sometimes caught Kaze looking at nothing for longer than seemed natural. But there was light, too.
And the light seemed to be winning.
---
Spring Again
The last day of college before break was warm, sunlight spilling over everything in lazy gold. Students were scattered across the lawn, the air filled with half-laughter and half-goodbyes.
Kaze and I found a bench beneath a canopy of whispering leaves, dappled shadows playing across their shoulders. The breeze was soft, the kind that carried scents from far-off places.
They sat there with paper cups of coffee, notspeaking
not needing to-
Then Kaze reached into her tote bag. Her fingers curled around something folded, edges softened by time.
I knew what it was before she saw it.
The poem
Kaze's voice was steady when she spoke.
"I kept the original. To remember who I was."
I felt her throat tighten.
I wasn't sure if the moisture in her eyes was from the wind or the words.
Kaze stood, her movements unhurried , and the wind caughtherscarf, wrapping it briefly around her before letting go.
Then she said it—soft,
careful,
and whole-
"Ashpen… thanks for being the evergreen tree in my air."
The words sank into my chest like rain into dry earth.
Kaze walked a few steps ahead, then turned slightly—waiting.
I stood,
and this time,
I didn't have to chaseher.
Some winds passthrough.
Others return when you leastexpect.
But the rarestones ?
They learn to stay.